Thief steals rainbow flag from Plano church, replaces it with U.S. flag

Share this:

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

PLANO -- Who would steal from a church on Easter??

Well, someone did just that at the Community Unitarian Universalist Church in Plano over the weekend.

The stolen property was a rainbow flag that's been flying in front of the church since last October.

"It's just basically a sign of inclusivity," the Reverend Patrick Price of the CUUC said of the flag. "But it's also, I think, for some people a symbol of otherness if they aren't familiar with what is actually intended."

Yeah, flying that "symbol of otherness" has had some real consequences in this part of the world. But instead of the destructive vandalism and even violence we've seen in places like Dallas' Oak Lawn, this flag thief just replaced the rainbow flag with an American one - and even left a note.

"The person leaving it basically said they disagreed with the flag we had up so they took it down, and put up another flag, and said you can take that down if you don't like it," said Rev. Price. "I'm an Air Force veteran... to use that as sort of a patriotism litmus test is ridiculous."

Price also pointed out that replacing the flag took some serious doing - it couldn't have been easy.

And, he says, "They did it really well, so it's great, and they put up a nice flag. So we're gonna keep it if they don't mind."

And alongside it, they'll fly a brand new rainbow flag they'd already purchased to replace the old one. Both will be displayed proudly, once the weather clears up some.

Safe to say the Reverend isn't too upset about what happened, but he does wish it had gone a little differently.

"There doesn't seem to be much maliciousness, only fear, I think, or misunderstanding," said Price. "I wish they'd come and had a conversation instead of taking it into their own hands."